


You're bad behavior (But you do it in the best way)

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: (and also a closet nudist), 5 Times, M/M, Steve McGarrett is a Little Shit, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 16:11:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16349858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: “What, what,whatare you doing?”His question does not have the desired effect of getting Steve to pause in his efforts to divest himself of seemingly all of his clothes. Instead, it means Steve is looking right at Danny while he pops the button on his cargo pants and pulls down the zipper. “I’m taking off my clothes,” Steve says, and Danny feels a little faint.Or: In which life in Five-0 is hard, but getting Steve to keep his clothes on while he works is even harder (and Danny refuses to even let himself think the obvious joke about what else is hard).





	You're bad behavior (But you do it in the best way)

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t really know what happened here, honestly. A few days ago I scrolled down in my H50 fic document to make a note of the random bit of sentence _“I’m taking off my clothes,” Steve says_ , because that seemed like the kind of ridiculous open door kicking that could be both hilarious and very in character and I wanted to maybe use it at some point, and today there’s… a full fic based around it, somehow? And it's almost 5k, no less. That one sentence, in many, many words: that’s this fic.
> 
> The title is a (slightly modified) line from _Immortals_ by Fall Out Boy.

It all starts on Monday, even if Danny only realizes it much later. Steve chases a suspect the way he likes to do, jumping lots of fences and running right into traffic and climbing someone’s house at one point. It even works, mostly. If his story is to be believed, Steve catches up to the guy and scuffles with him for a bit, but then someone else starts shooting at him and he has to let both of the bad guys go as he scrambles for cover. By the time he’s drawn his gun and gets a few shots of his own in, they’re too far ahead, even for SuperSEAL, to still stand a chance at catching up to them again.

The guys were both masked and of average height and build, so there’s not much good that description does them. To add insult to injury, those men were their only real lead, which they encountered by accident when they found the first guy snooping through their murder victim’s stuff at the victim’s house. With no strong evidence pointing anywhere and no suspects to question yet, they’re left to hope the autopsy of the body will turn up something interesting.

Max greets them normally when they get to the morgue, but before they have a chance to respond in kind, he stops short at the sight of Steve. “Oh, are you hurt, Commander?”

“No,” Steve says, even though that’s not any kind of reassurance that he really isn’t, in Danny’s experience. The confusion in his voice makes it sound convincing though, Danny will give him that. “Why?”

“I couldn’t help but notice there is blood on your clothes.”

Danny looks at Steve, really looks at him, and wonders what he’s been doing that he hasn’t noticed the red stains at the hem of Steve’s shirt and on the side of his pants before now. In Danny’s defense, the blood is on Steve’s left side, and since Steve always insists on driving Danny’s car, that’s not a side of him Danny often gets to see.

“What did you do, you animal?” He’s pretty sure Steve really isn’t hurt, or he wouldn’t look so genuinely surprised now, so he feels okay insulting him.

“This must be from the guy I was chasing,” Steve says, and his confusion turns into excitement.

“Did he get hit by a bullet meant for you?”

“No, I don’t think so. I would have noticed if he had, but he must have gotten hurt somehow while we were struggling.” He looks up; there’s that slightly mad glint in his eye that he gets sometimes, like a hound who knows it’s getting closer to its prey. “This is great – Max, the lab will be able to run DNA from this, right?”

“Absolutely,” Max assures them. “I can say with confidence that they are quite capable of extracting usable samples from dried blood.”

Steve doesn’t give so much as a nod of acknowledgement before he starts stripping. His T-shirt is over his head before Danny can blink.

“Whoa,” he blurts, because he has no brain to mouth filter sometimes. He follows it up with the first things that come to mind that could make it sound a little less like he was appreciating the unexpected show. “Hey, Magic Mike, I’d like to point out you look way too eager to take your clothes off in a work setting. We’re standing _right next_ to a dead body, creep.”

Steve glances at the body. “He won’t mind,” he says. He hands Max the shirt, kicking off his shoes and getting to work on his fly.

Danny’s mouth is getting a little dry. “What, the pants too?”

“Best to be thorough. They’re ruined anyway.” Steve drops the pants and empties the pockets before he hands them off to Max as well. He’s left standing there in just his boxers, a dark blue, uncomfortably clingy affair.

Uncomfortable for Danny, that is. They’re not that ridiculously tight, and Max also doesn’t seem to be batting a single eyelash over any of it.

“This is consumer culture,” Danny prattles. “Do you get rid of every item of clothing that has blood stains on it? Because then I wonder why you even need a washing machine in your house. Going through so much stuff without stopping to think about how much waste you’re producing is really bad for the environment, you know that? Grace did a whole report on it a while back.”

Steve smiles that soft smile he gets when Grace is mentioned. “Really? I’d love to read it.”

“Yeah, well. You’ll have to ask her for it.” Danny, if he allows himself to think about it for a second or two, feels very conflicted. On the one hand, talking about his daughter should sufficiently distract him from his more carnal thoughts. On the other, seeing Steve go all gooey about Danny’s kid while wearing next to nothing is definitely distracting, but not in any kind of helpful way.

Danny raises his hands and isn’t sure if he means to put them on Steve’s abs (which are just right there in front of him, in plain sight) or if he just wants to shield his own eyes. (Well, that’s a lie, obviously – he does know which one of those he wants, he just isn’t sure how ready he is to admit it to himself yet.) He ends up crossing his arms over his chest, tucking his hands firmly in his armpits, where they’re trapped and can’t do anything momentously stupid.

“I’ll get these sent to the lab immediately,” Max says, retrieving a large enough plastic bag from a drawer. Danny is very grateful for the reminder not to keep staring at Steve.

Steve nods. “Thanks, buddy.” He looks down at himself, the first indication that he has any inkling that standing here in his underwear is just a tad weird. “Danny, could you go get my spare set of clothes from the car?”

“What, are you telling me you’re not comfortable getting them yourself while dressed like this?”

“I’m not _un_ comfortable,” Steve says, and it looks like he’s telling the truth, the bastard. “But other people might be, if I go wandering out on the street like this in broad daylight.”

Oh, he probably doesn’t even know how right he is about that.

Danny’s hands break free from their armpit prisons before he can stop them, but it’s just to wave them around. It’s fine so long as he makes sure to avoid expansive gestures that could mean he accidentally hits Steve’s giant wall of chest. “Amazing. I’m extremely impressed by the level of self-awareness you’re displaying. Really, well done.”

“Less on the sarcasm, more on the clothes fetching,” Steve says, and holds something out to Danny. It takes him a second of blind rage when he realizes it’s his own car keys that Steve is offering him like he’s doing Danny a favor.

“Oh, thank you so much.” Danny snatches the keys from his hand. “I’m not your personal assistant, you realize that?” 

“Really? Maybe we should update your job description.”

Danny turns away in a huff, already fed up with Steve’s insolent grin and lack of clothes.

“Thank you, Danno,” Steve calls after him.

Danny waves a hand over his shoulder. “Yeah, yeah.”

*

On Tuesday, they go to check out a lead, just the two of them. It’s obvious there’s something wrong as soon as they pull up to the house, and they’re not even two steps onto the postage stamp sized lawn, when a woman appears in front of the downstairs window. Tears are streaming down her face and the barrel of a gun is pressed to her temple, held by someone who is carefully keeping themselves out of view.

The woman opens the window with shaky hands and throws a walkie-talkie out on the grass. As soon as she’s closed the window, she is dragged to the side until they can’t see her anymore. 

Steve and Danny exchange a single look before Steve retrieves the walkie-talkie. He has a short conversation with the hostage taker, but what it comes down to is that the guy on the other end of the line wants them to put their wallets, guns and car keys next to the door and then leave. Steve tries to goad the guy into revealing a little more, but he doesn’t seem like the talkative type. He stays silent and after a few attempts, Steve gives up.

He looks at Danny with a pinched, unhappy expression. “We can’t call for back-up, or whoever is inside will shoot her. We can’t be sure he doesn’t have someone watching us, either.”

“Right. But we can’t just leave.” Danny feels the need to put it out there, even though he fully knows there is no way Steve was about to suggest that. He doesn’t have much else to contribute to the conversation, so he sticks to pointing out the obvious.

Steve’s frown deepens for a second, before he starts unbuttoning his shirt. He is actually wearing something with buttons for once, but then he drops it to the ground, and he’s not wearing any kind of shirt at all anymore.

Alarm shoots through Danny. “What, what, _what_ are you doing?”

His question does not have the desired effect of getting Steve to pause in his efforts to divest himself of seemingly all of his clothes. Instead, it means Steve is looking right at Danny while he pops the button on his cargo pants and pulls down the zipper. “I’m taking off my clothes,” Steve says, and Danny feels a little faint.

“Yes, thank you, Captain Obvious. I can _see that_ , very plainly, right here in front of me.” He gestures at, well, Steve’s very nearly naked body. Steve seems to have drawn the line at his boxers, and Danny is on the fence about if he should be sending higher powers a thank you note or a sternly worded letter of complaint over that. “What I am wondering, genius, is _why_ you’re stripping like your life depends on satisfying your exhibitionism kink.”

“I don’t have an exhibitionism kink,” Steve says, like that’s the relevant point that Danny wanted to delve deeper into.

“Are you sure, buddy? Because you’re not really making a very convincing argument, flinging your shirt away every chance you get.”

“How’s this for an argument: I’m going over there to talk to the kidnapper, and I need to show them I’m no threat and I’m not hiding any weapons.”

Danny manfully doesn’t look at Steve’s boxers to see if he could be hiding anything there. “That’s ridiculous. That is a terrible plan.”

“It’s a legitimate tactic,” Steve counters. “Grover did it on his first day at HPD when we were being held hostage inside the Palace, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not still ridiculous! Would you jump off a bridge if Grover did it?”

“I’d like to think I would be the first to jump,” Steve says, looking entirely serious. “If you want to know if Grover would follow _me_ off the bridge, you should ask him, but I think he would, if he thought it was necessary. As would you.”

Danny stares at him. Not that he wasn’t doing that anyway, but Steve’s sheer _Steveness_ provides a good cover. “That’s not the correct response, Steven. In fact, it’s not even a response to my question at all.”

“Yes, it is,” Steve argues. 

Danny sputters a bit because Steve, Steve is terrible and has done the impossible and made Danny _run out of words_ , and Steve seems to take that as a sign that the issue is settled. He shoots Danny a sunny grin and turns, approaching the house with his arms raised.

Danny really hopes these criminals are either extremely straight men, lesbians, or completely asexual, because if not, hostage negotiations are going to be harder than Steve expects. He resolutely keeps his eyes on the back of Steve’s head and does not let them stray anywhere south of that, no matter how easy it would be.

The really annoying part is that Steve’s gambit works. When Steve knocks at the door, it’s opened just a sliver, but it’s enough for him to peer inside and signal the number of enemies to Danny with two fingers where the people inside can’t see it. Everything happens very quickly after that; one moment Steve is just standing there, arms nonthreateningly by his side, and the next he yanks the door open further while simultaneously punching the guy behind it square in the face. He ducks and yells “Shoot!” at Danny, but Danny doesn’t need to be told, because he’s already got his gun out and has a clear line of sight into the room and to the second guy, who is raising his weapon. He never gets to point it anywhere that would have done him any good.

Not exactly how Grover intended it, perhaps, but his technique does the job anyway.

As soon as the suspects are down, Steve storms into the house. Danny permits himself a second to take a steadying breath, and then collects Steve’s discarded pants and shirt and follows him inside. He can go get his socks and shoes on his own. Serves him right.

*

Danny doesn’t realize it’s quickly becoming a recurring thing until Wednesday. Nearly naked Steve once is just one of those days, nearly naked Steve twice is a coincidence, but nearly naked Steve three times in a row is a pattern.

On Wednesday, a lead challenges Steve to a surfing battle in exchange for information. She’s very pretty – blue bikini, wavy hair that just tickles her shoulders – but that doesn’t mean she gets to make demands before helping them in a murder investigation.

“Yeah, that’s funny, babe, but that’s not happening,” Danny says. Problem is that Steve is right next to him, pretty effectively undermining every word he says by already dropping his shirt to the ground.

Danny very obviously turns to him, spreading his hands wide in the universal gesture of exasperation, but Steve pays him no mind.

“Steven,” he says, trying to convey as many of the stages of grief in two syllables as he can. He thinks he does pretty well.

“Danny,” Steve echoes back, happily.

“Stop!” Danny waves his hands around in something that might look more like ‘come on’, than ‘cease your activities right this second’. It doesn’t matter either way, because Steve’s shirt, pants and shoes are already in a disorganized heap on the sand and there’s no going back on that now. “Just stop, stop taking off your clothes, stop, for the love of all that is holy.”

Steve, the fucker, grins at him. It’s one of those cocky grins, which on most people look like they spent hours in front of the mirror practicing, but not on Steve. Steve is the type of genetically blessed bastard who makes it look _deserved_ , like he’s perfectly within his rights to look that damn smug about himself. “Why, Danno?” he asks. “Feeling threatened in your masculinity?”

“No, as a matter of fact, threatened is not how I would describe my current state of being, you Neanderthal.” 

“Good, because you have nothing to worry about.” Danny doesn’t miss the way Steve’s eyes crawl down his body, but then it’s kind of hard to miss, because Steve is not exactly subtle about it. “You have a very nice body, pal.”

Danny needs a moment just to breathe. Steve, golden in the afternoon sun in nothing but his underwear, complimenting Danny’s body while eying him up, but also calling him his pal very platonically (as an alibi? because he really does believe this is what normal male friendships look like? who the hell knows) is not what he thought this day would look like, when he got out of bed this morning.

“This is like the time that inmate challenged you to a game of basketball, isn’t it?” Except it’s not, not at all, because at least back then Steve _kept his damn clothes on_.

“That just means you should stop arguing with me, Danno, unless you want someone to call us married again.”

“That’s not an effective deterrent,” Danny says, and is immediately very glad that that’s when their witness’s friend shows up with a spare surfboard for Steve. He should maybe be a little more careful about what his words seem to imply, but that’s very hard around Steve, who always makes him want to yell out the first thing that pops into his head.

Steve gives him another grin and a hang loose sign, and jogs off with the board.

Steve wins, of course, and then parades around in nothing but his boxers until they’re done questioning the lead. She doesn’t seem to mind too much, and Danny honestly can’t blame her.

*

On Thursday, Steve spills coffee all over his own shirt. He hisses, and Danny has a moment of panic where he tries to remember everything he knows about the correct treatment of burn wounds (run under tepid water unless it’s really bad, in which case it absolutely shouldn’t come into contact with anything except a doctor), before Steve scowls and puts his now empty cup on the edge of the tech table. He doesn’t look like he’s pain, just like he’s cursing himself out mentally.

“Oh, brah,” Chin says, sympathetic. “What happened?”

“Missed my mouth,” Steve replies, sounding deservedly sheepish about it. He plucks at the shirt, trying to get it to unstick from his pecs, which are outlined very nicely through the soaked fabric (not that Danny would notice). His scowl never leaves his face, but it does transform from annoyed to disgusted.

Kono is a lot less sympathetic. She’s grinning. “How did you manage that? Too busy staring at Danny to look at your coffee?”

“Hey,” Danny says. He’s not even sure he should be taking offense at that, but Kono’s teasing makes him distressingly aware that he’s been quiet since the spill. It’s more than a little incriminating.

“No, I just-” Steve gives up on poking at his chest and ruined shirt with a sigh. He takes hold of the hem to peel it off over his head. Danny openly watches the stretch of his body, but doesn’t feel too bad about it, because Steve was talking and you’re supposed to look at people when they talk. It’s polite. “Clumsy,” Steve finishes, trying to pat dry his own chest with the caffeine-free back of his shirt.

“Okay, boss,” Kono says sweetly, and if it had come from anyone but her, Danny would have thought it really was the ready acceptance of the lie that it appears to be. From Kono, he’s pretty sure it instead means that she’s letting Steve get away with it for now, but that this will most definitely come back to bite both of them in the ass at some point.

Danny can’t even fully disapprove of that. Steve, decorated Navy SEAL, does not usually upend cups of liquid over himself when standing still on solid ground, nor does it sound like a very plausible story. Danny decides not to prod, though, because that way lies danger.

“You know what?” he asks instead. “You should move your wardrobe into your office. I bet you change clothes on the job more often than you do at home.”

Steve stops rubbing his own chest to look at Danny. “That might not even be a bad idea,” he sighs.

Chin stands up straight from where he was hunched over his tablet. “Guys, I think I found something.”

Like a switch being flipped, Steve goes from slightly awkward to coolly professional. His stance relaxes and he crosses his arms over his chest. “Great. Show us what you’ve got.”

Chin starts flicking images onto the wall monitor, accompanied by an explanation of how he figured out that their murder victim was being scammed out of thousands of dollars by his own sister. Steve stands there, listening attentively, still casually shirtless. It’s only ten minutes later, when they’ve decided to bring in the victim’s sister for further questioning, that he ducks into his office to get one of his spare shirts.

“You couldn’t have done that earlier?” Danny asks, when a fully clothed Steve falls into step next to him on their way out to the Camaro. “You just had to stay shirtless until now?”

Steve shrugs. “We were working.”

“Babe, ‘I was shirtless because I was doing my job’ doesn’t really fly for anyone who isn’t a stripper.”

“I hear it’s a very lucrative profession,” Steve says, which makes Danny accuse him of using non-sequiturs as an argumentative tactic and derails their conversation entirely.

For all of the shit Danny gives him over temporarily not wearing a shirt, Steve does go home that day in the same pair of pants he arrived in, to his credit, without ever taking them off in public in between. Danny feels oddly bereft.

*

When Friday comes along, Danny firmly tells himself not to expect anything. He tries to convince his own brain not to hope for anything, either, but that’s a lost cause.

It’s both a thrill and extremely frustrating when Steve takes a running jump onto a small yacht just leaving the port and wrestles their perp until both of them go over the railing. On the one hand, it’s a very daredevilish move, of exactly the kind that will cause Danny to go grey before he turns fifty. On the other, it means Steve will probably want to change his clothes.

Steve drops the criminal on the pier for Danny to take care of, and then swims back out to bring the captainless yacht back to shore. It’s adrift, not too far away, but Steve still has to swim some distance to get to it, because it drifted further from where he and the perp went into the water while it was slowing down. Danny watches the back of Steve’s head and his sure, strong strokes for a moment.

“Am I going to be arrested, or what?” the perp asks, sitting on the planks of the pier dripping wet and sulky. 

“Oh, someone’s in a mood,” Danny says, annoyed he let himself get caught staring, even if it was just by this murderous lowlife. He drags the guy up so he can cuff him.

Even while standing at the man’s back, Danny can still hear the sulk has grown in size. “Five-0’s crazy.”

“Okay, buddy, I’ll let you in on a little secret for free: it’s all that guy out there. I, as a matter of fact, am quite sane, if I do say so myself.”

“You can’t be sane if you like him.”

Danny slaps the guy’s shoulder as a sign for him to start walking. He’s maybe a little more forceful about it than strictly necessary. “What makes you think I like him?”

“You work with him, right?”

Danny decides not to grace that with a response because it’s a stupid question. It has nothing to do with the fact that he thought the guy meant an entirely different kind of like, and that he feels a little awkward about thinking he got caught out just because the torch he’s carrying for Steve has been on his own mind so much lately.

He passes the perp off to HPD officers who are just arriving on scene. He’s not entirely sure what he’s thinking after that – he probably means to be helpful, or something equally masochistic – but he gets Steve’s newest set of spare clothes from the trunk of the car and walks back down the pier. When he arrives at the right spot, Steve is just finishing docking the yacht. “Our guy is getting booked?” is the first thing he asks when he spots Danny.

“Yeah, HPD’s handling it.” He gestures with the clothes. “I thought I’d bring you a present.” 

Steve doesn’t look like he’s literally dripping anymore, but the way his clothes and hair are still plastered to his skin do not tell the story of a dry man. Neither does the way he perks up at the appearance of a dry shirt and pair of pants. “That’s great, actually. Thanks.”

Danny means to hand the clothes over to Steve, he really does, but he hesitates just a second too long and suddenly Steve has turned and is disappearing below deck. Danny has no choice but to step onto the yacht and follow him.

‘Below deck’, in this case, is a single room, featuring more or less everything a person could need: a bed, a kitchenette, a very tiny bathroom in one corner, a couch, and a huge flat screen TV mounted to the wall. By the time Danny is done taking in the décor, Steve has peeled off his shirt. He lets it drop to the floor, where it lands with a wet smack. His sandals end up next to it – somehow he had the good foresight not to wear actual shoes today – and then his pants follow, with only a bit of a struggle against the wet material.

Danny doesn’t watch him too obviously, but doesn’t _not_ watch him, either. It’s good. It’s alright. This is normal by now; he can deal with this.

That’s when Steve’s thumbs slip under the hem of his boxers. 

“Wow!” Danny yells, and he sounds alarmed enough that Steve freezes and his head snaps up. “Whoa, hey, buddy,” he prattles on, “what do you think you’re doing? Why are you trying to take those off too?”

“Because I went for an unexpected swim in them, Danno, and I don’t want to have to wait for them to dry. They’re soaked.”

“Yeah, well, tough. Stripping buck naked is not something one does in polite company.”

Steve smiles. He _smiles_. “Polite company? I only see you here.”

“Yes, yes, I _am_ here. That’s not a reason for you to keep your clothes on, perhaps, possibly, maybe?”

If Danny thought Steve’s smile was bad, he was a fool. It morphs into a grin and really, honestly, this is just unfair. “No,” Steve says, and peels off his boxers.

And okay, Danny is no prude, alright, but he might turn his back on Steve at that. Steve’s warm laughter behind him really does nothing to improve the situation, and neither does the fact that he got a good eyeful before he looked away.

*

On Saturday, it’s Rachel’s weekend with Grace. Danny sits around his empty apartment for a few hours, before he decides that he’s being ridiculous and hops in the Camaro. He could lie to himself and say he didn’t plan on ending up parked in front of Steve’s house, but it would be a little useless at this point.

He has to make a full round through the house before he finds Steve in the garage. He’s hidden under his dad’s car, only his cargo-clad legs sticking out. Danny has never before been attracted to feet, let alone feet in flip-flops.

He doesn’t bother with hellos – they’re long past that, and he’s sure Steve heard him approach anyway, with those sneaky SEAL senses of his – and instead launches right into it. “So, what’s your flimsy excuse going to be this time?”

Steve, his back apparently on an old skateboard, bends his legs and rolls out from under the car. He blinks up at Danny, feigning innocence (badly). 

Danny is almost surprised he manages to not cover Steve’s body with his own and lick that smudge of oil from his cheek. It would be a horrifically bad idea, but he still wants to do it. This is what Steve has turned him into.

“I have no clue what you mean,” Steve says, rising from the board with a single elegant sit-up that makes the muscles under his dirty, clingy tank top shift.

“Oh, yes you do,” Danny retorts. “You’ve been allergic to clothes all week, and I’ll admit some of those occasions weren’t necessarily your fault in their entirety, but I’m about ninety percent sure you spilled that coffee on purpose-”

Steve ducks his head, but it doesn’t hide his smirk.

“Okay, scratch that, I’m a hundred percent certain, you incorrigible dork. So all of this means that I’m just, you know, curious. In the interest of being prepared, being a good boy scout, whatever. How are you going to find a reason to get naked around me today, huh?”

Steve makes a show of wiping his greasy hands on a rag and putting the rag down on the workbench almost in slow motion, like he’s got all the time in the world. He looks Danny up and down just as leisurely. “I don’t know, Danno,” he says, and his façade finally starts cracking, that devastating grin of his showing through, “do you have any suggestions?”

“Well,” Danny says, having a hard time fighting his own grin, and wondering why he should, anyway. He licks his lips and watches Steve track the movement. “Since you’re asking.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! If you liked this (or even if you didn't and have a reason why), consider leaving a comment if you can, because they are always welcome. <3
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), and as of a few days ago, I also have an H50 sideblog called [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com/).


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